Hands Have Memories
by Aksannyi
Summary: Present day, post Ziva departure. On the wings of Tony's departure from NCIS, he and Ziva reunite. Ziva is struck by an onslaught of memories of their time together, of the past, and the way his hands felt. Angst warning. Tiva always. Rated M for some snippets of mature content, not terribly explicit this time.
**So basically this is a reunion fic, I changed some of the circumstances around her departure though, and I'm sorry for the angst. (Okay no I'm not.)
**

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It was his hands that she noticed first.

 _Those hands that had once traced a line down her smooth expanse of skin, lovingly caressing all that he had unearthed. Slowly sliding fingers inside and eliciting a soft gasp as she tingled at the pleasure, feeling the pressure building as she grinded against his wrist, silently begging for more as he teased her, bringing her to the edge with his name on a sigh._

 _The way he'd withdrawn his hand to a moan of protest, only to return his hands to her skin, teasing her entrance with his hard length, catching her eye with the silent question and slowly, slowly sliding in as she nodded her assent, delighting in the way her toes curled and her back arched up toward him with each torturously slow thrust._

 _Afterwards, it had been his hands that had lulled her to sleep, softly rubbing circles against her bare stomach as she molded against him, contentedly sighing into a dream state._

 _And it had been his hands that she reached for in the morning, and her heart sinking at the realization that he was no longer there._

How many times she had dreamed of those hands. Those hands that had held her close, shielding her from all of the pain in her life, wiping away the few tears she had allowed to fall. Those hands that had, for a moment in time, been entwined in hers, infinitely connected, gripping, holding tight – until they weren't, and despite how badly she wanted to, she hadn't reached for him again.

He worked with those hands, steadily holding a suspect at gunpoint, hardily handcuffing a criminal against a wall, wearily wiping his brow as he typed his final reports. She'd watched his hands, the myriad of ways in which he used them, and she missed them, the way they'd felt tangled in her hair on that one and only undercover op and the longing she tried not to allow herself to feel when she remembered the feel of them there.

And here they were, in front of her, held comfortably at his sides, his shoulders slumped casually as he leaned against the pillar by the door, his eyes piercing, that gaze … _that gaze._

If his hands were the first thing she always noticed, his eyes were a close second.

He was the last person she'd expected to see when she opened the door to her small house in the country, for after he'd left without so much as a word she'd opted to forget about him, forget he existed, forget the perfect way his hands just _fit_ everywhere on her body and the way he held her heart so tenuously in them.

Except for a momentary flash of a memory – which happened much more frequently than she cared to admit – she'd done just that, dwelling less and less on the way his hand would settle on the small of her back as he'd followed her to the elevators, or the way his fingers curled tightly around the strap of his backpack as he'd routinely grabbed his gear.

Or the way his hands always seemed to soften, just as he had, whenever they had the opportunity to be close to _her._

And all she could ask was, "Why?" A whisper of a word, carried away and almost lost on a breeze as she stood, silently meeting his eyes with her own steady gaze. "Why did you leave?"

He opened his mouth to speak, his breath catching in his throat, a flash of pain illuminating his eyes only briefly before the mask returned. "You wanted me to, didn't you?"

 _I wanted you to do a lot of things,_ she thought, swallowing a lump that had been building in her throat since the moment she'd laid eyes on those calloused hands, those hands that had once pulled her close and spun her around a nightclub, tightening around her waist as she'd forgotten – momentarily – what they'd even left the country for.

"I wanted you," she simply said, and this time, she didn't mask the hurt in her words, the way her voice wavered, faltering as she spoke the truth, the way she wanted him to reach for her, take her into those arms of his and hold her tightly with those hands of hers telling her without words that he'd never let her go.

"I…" he trailed off, unable to respond, shifting to a frown, his brow furrowing in sadness at all that had been lost, everything he'd given up when he'd left that cold October morning after a night he'd yet been able to get out of his mind for any significant length of time.

She closed her eyes, unsure how to respond, unsure of anything but how to breathe, one deep breath in, and another out, a sigh, perhaps, but the only way in which she could respond to the way her heart seemed perilously perched on the precipice of plummeting to the floor, the way too many – far too many – of her tears had done in the last three years of her life without him.

More than anything, she wanted to reach for him, his hand, those hands from which she had always drawn comfort, just to be sure, _to know,_ if it was still the same, if nothing had changed when everything had changed, but she remained, still, eyes closed, paralyzed in the moment and the longing and the _need_ she hadn't felt in so long. "I'm sorry," he said, and she opened her eyes as his words washed over her, and finally, _finally,_ she allowed a single tear to fall, turning her cheek just so slightly to hide it from his view, hoping maybe he had not seen it.

"Ziva," he gasped, and her lips parted and her knees weakened at the sound of his voice saying her name, like a prayer, like he was a sinner in need of absolution. And he lifted his hand slightly, as if to wipe the tear from her cheek, but thought better of it, and she let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding despite her desire for him to touch her but also her fear of allowing it, allowing _him,_ to touch her again.

And she wasn't so sure, at this point, if she even meant the physical touch.

"I'm sorry," he said again, this time reaching for her waist, his thumb lightly caressing the tiniest hint of bare skin between shirt and jeans, and she shuddered involuntarily at the way his touch made her feel, leaning into his hand and reveling in the way he anchored her, just from a simple touch of his hands, it had _always_ been his hands.

He glanced at the connection between them, and then back at her, silently asking if it was okay, if touching her was allowed, and it brought her back to that time, that _one_ time, and she nodded slightly, allowing the comfort of his hands if only for this brief moment in time, just one more pull from that addiction before inevitably quitting cold turkey once again. "I missed you," she admitted, her voice again but a whisper against the wind whipping her hair behind her, the trees rustling and the leaves trying vainly not to fall. She, too, was trying desperately not to fall, but like the leaves, it was inevitable, inevitable, inevitable …

… _His hand wrapped tightly around a glass of scotch as he spoke the word – inevitable – his hands flexing as he brought the glass to his lips and she reminded him that nothing was … nothing ever was …_

He interrupted her thoughts, watching the emotions caress her face as he once had. "Walk with me?" She nodded, stepping out from the safety and comfort of the home she'd – _they'd –_ slept in, and into the unknown of a relationship she hadn't known in years. She fell quietly into step with him, looking straight ahead and not at him, not at his hands, those hands she desperately wanted to feel reaching for her, or wrapping around her, or teasing her intimately again, loving her.

The breeze was inconstant, with the wind sometimes picking into a full gust and at times dying down to a gentle caress, and she supposed that was her emotions as well, at times tumultuous and fervid and at times almost calm, as though the one man who had left his inevitable – _there it was again –_ mark on her was not standing right beside her, his hand merely centimeters from her own.

"I'm leaving NCIS, you know," he said casually, as though he was telling her that he'd had pancakes for breakfast. With syrup, and a bit of bacon on the side, hold the butter. And that she'd remembered his breakfast order after all this time … was definitely _not_ something she wished to dwell on, or the pain of waking to find him gone before she could prepare it for him over talking about the future they might have had together.

She didn't reply. She couldn't think of a thing to say, and he didn't continue, allowing her to come to her own conclusions on this new development, this new space between them. Several minutes passed in silence, their steps slow and leisurely, when she spoke on a gust of wind, voicing only one question, "And?"

"And I… I want to try. Again. Us."

"Was there an 'us'?" The words left her lips quickly, without consideration, unlike any single thing she'd said – with or without words – since the moment he'd shown up at her doorstep. Bitter, she sounded bitter, and she closed her eyes against the assault of tears she felt welling up again, hoping, _begging,_ that he would not notice this time.

It was his turn to speak softly, his words carried along the breeze to her ears. "I regret that there wasn't," was the response. She stopped, turning toward him, hoping that the tears she'd been struggling to keep at bay remained so, regarding him critically, narrowing her eyes and daring not to hope.

He turned too, and it was then that she noticed the tearful glow in his eyes as well, the way that his hand twitched toward her, as though his hands desired to feel her in the same way that she so desperately wanted to feel his hands. To feel his hand cupping her cheek and pulling her slightly into a tender kiss, to feel his hands wrapped around her waist and holding her in a tight hug, to feel his hands the way they had always been, comfortable upon her skin. And she looked at him, willing him to understand how much she needed him – needed him to need her, and needed him to not let her down again.

"I want…" he trailed off, and she watched again as his hand twitched, his thumb bending as though he wanted to grab something, his fingers curling as though he was consciously stopping himself from reaching for her, and she sucked in a breath as she remembered the way he _grabbed_ her sometimes, like the time all those years ago when he'd called her a genius as they had an intimate conversation in the men's bathroom, grabbing her tightly by the arms and squeezing lightly, reassuringly; the way his hands flexed now as they did in Somalia when he wanted so desperately to reach out to her but couldn't, didn't know how anymore.

His hands were often rough, but soft and loving, and – _god –_ she wanted them to be hers again, if they ever had been to begin with. Perhaps his hands, his _touch,_ was the reason they felt so uncomfortable, so unnatural together after all this time, for when was it ever natural that his hands were _not_ there to offer some sort of support; comfort?

"Can we try?" He interrupted her thoughts again, and this time, he didn't resist the urge to lift his hand, to reach for her, but he stopped halfway, offering it to her, leaving it for her to take.

It was his hand that he held out to her, but _oh,_ it was so much _more_ than that, and she could see in his eyes that he knew it just as well as she did. And _oh,_ she wanted so badly to take it, to put her smaller hand in his and let him pull her into her again, let herself go back to a time when she could touch him, and he her, to pull him – _them –_ forward by the hand, into a chance, a chance at something, at least. She sucked in a breath, holding it there as she gazed at him, unsure, searching, her heart wanting _desperately_ to take that leap, her skin wanting _desperately_ to feel that touch.

His hand stood steady, waiting, open. That hand she'd craved for so many nights, as she'd closed her eyes against the onslaught of feelings and desires, wishing for a moment to have his hands on her again. That hand that had lulled her to sleep, content in the knowledge that he would be there, always, to hold her. That hand that had been gone, achingly gone, when she'd needed it to help her pick up the pieces of her broken heart.

That hand that, after everything, she still wanted, craved, _needed._

Her fingers twitched and she _knew,_ and her mind was made up. She lifted her hand, leaning toward him slightly as she placed her hand in his, and when his fingers clasped around hers and she nodded slightly in answer to his question, she knew that she was _home._

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 **Again, sorry not sorry for the angst! This one just came to me out of nowhere and begged to be written. Please enjoy, and also please stay tuned because I am never done writing Tiva!  
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